5th August 2009 Archive

Palm has filed a complaint with an industry group that monitors USB standards, claiming that Apple is "hampering competition" by locking the Palm Pre out of iTunes. The same complaint also reveals details of how the Pre tricks iTunes into thinking it's an iPod.

Acer is eying up e-books and TV to keep sales growing. The ambition, heralded yesterday by Acer chairman Stan Shih, shows the Taiwanese PC powerhouse is more comfortable building out a consumer electronics business, than striking out for the enterprise.

Reports that Apple may be developing a tablet PC are nothing new, with many convinced that the device will be called the iTablet. However, uncovered Apple software code has since revealed that the rumoured gadget may have a slightly weirder name.

Sony has launched two more e-ink-based electronic books. The cheapest sports a 5 inch screen and is priced at $200, while an inch-larger touch screen brings the price up to $300. But neither features wireless - at least not yet.

Japanese scientists developing a powered exoskeletal suit intended for "heavy labour", "rescue support at disaster sites" and use by the disabled or elderly - not to mention applications in "the entertainment field" - have taken their equipment out for a test drive on the streets of Tokyo.

The LG GD900 Crystal wouldn't be the first mobile to sell itself on a gimmick. But in today's increasingly competitive market, a gimmick just isn't enough. The new Crystal's schtick is that it has a see-through keypad – as in, transparent.

NetApp's cloud czar, Val Bercovici, has blogged about NetApp's "upcoming NetApp Cloud Launch later this year" which will involve NetApp working with Cisco and VMWare to deliver a virtualised cloud network, server and storage infrastructure.

Yesterday's technology demonstration by SpinVox at its Marlow HQ reminded everyone just how hard it is to do voice to text machine translation, and how far away anyone is from automating the bulk of the voicemail translation in the real world.

Every part of the IT ecosystem has been slammed by the economic downturn, and the Ethernet switch market is no exception. In fact, makers of Ethernet switches are probably feeling a little bit of déjà vu after the downtown that followed the dot.com bust in 2001.